“Many tribes are being attacked,” she continued. “All in the last two days, and all by the metal dragons. The Akeet tribe, the Ma’sar, the Bndoui – all the tribes west of the Shifting Sands – even if we’ve never had any dealings with the metal queen!”
Metal Queen, I thought, the name sounding ugly and thick in my mind – and oddly apt, as well.
“I have people,” I said quickly, seeing how this woman was struggling with the injustice of it. “An army, almost. They are following on behind, and we can offer aid, healing—” I thought of the young mage, Montfre, and his ability to heal people with just magic words and gestures.
“Don’t bother,” the Imanu of the Ingwar tribe said tightly. “We Ingwar have never wanted anything to do with the Three Kingdoms. And I won’t let who is left of us be dragged into some Souda vendetta!”
I opened and closed my mouth, feeling as though I had just been slapped. I guess I had, I had to concede. “I am sorry.” I bowed my head in shame. It was only natural for this Imanu to feel this way about me – an interloper into her territory, and flying on the wings of tragedy and battle.
“It is not your fault,” I heard Ymmen hiss in my mind, as his fattened tail thumped behind him on the sand, like an agitated cat.
“It’s okay, my brother,” I whispered to the dragon, patting his scales gently, before turning to look back at Opula of the Ingwar people. “I am sorry for your losses,” I said in a louder, firmer voice. “And I will do what I can to bring vengeance to the woman who did this to you.”
The Imanu inclined her head in agreement, but without any thanks.
“Come, my heart.” I settled myself again into the natural seat on Ymmen’s shoulders. “We need to see the other villages. There might be some there that need our help.” I leaned forward to put my hands around the dragon’s neck as Ymmen lifted himself to one, rising screech before leaping into the air again and heading West.
I didn’t tell Ymmen – and knew that I didn’t have to either – that I was terrified that Inyene’s metal dragons might have reached the Daza townships. And wherever my mother was right now.
The further west across the Plains that we traveled, the more evidence we saw of the metal queen Inyene’s wrath. Burnt-out and burning villages dotted the lands – with no seeming rhyme or reason of how or why which of the hut-circle villages had been chosen for Inyene’s ire, and which ones had been spared.
“This is not right!” Ymmen’s anger bubbled through him and into me. “These abominations know nothing of dragon ways. Real dragons wouldn’t attack here and there on a whim! Where is the meat to be had? Where is the victory?”
I could only agree, as I watched from under lidded eyes, feeling my hatred of Inyene only grow stronger and stronger. She’s trying to scare us. To punish us, I conceded. These attacks were not part of an organized campaign. She did not want to learn information, or strategize against me and Naroba and our army.
She was just doing this out of spite, I thought angrily.
We landed at the first village, where the Bndoui peoples were considerably friendlier than the Ingwar, even appearing to marvel at Ymmen’s bulk and strength (a fact that made the black dragon give a deep, rasping purr of pleasure). But the story was the same: That the metal dragons had swept out of the sky, with no challenge or battle cry, and had utterly decimated two of their settlements.
“I promise that I will make her pay,” I repeated again, to the Imanu Gisele of the Bndoui, and we left for the next village. For the rest of the afternoon, we didn’t need to be given directions by one appalled villager or another, as I could plainly see the pillars of black smoke rising across the Plains like strange, new, and awful trees.
At each village we were met with tales of horror and sorrow, and I could feel my heart clenching tighter and tighter as I looked into another pair of eyes, and another, and repeated the words: “I am Narissea of the Souda, and I promise that I will make the metal queen pay for what she has done…” The words became like a holy hymn, or a mantra – but it wasn’t a song that uplifted me, just made me feel somehow colder and ever more determined.
“How many has she killed already?” I asked myself as we flew. How many villages had she destroyed? Tens? Hundreds? From our great height, it was almost like looking down at the scene of some child’s terrible tantrum, written across the face of the world.
“The Western Wind,” I heard Ymmen murmur to me as the wind pulled at my hair and froze the tears that I was trying not to think about. Souda, I thought instinctively. It was the name of mine and Naroba’s home tribe, and when translated it meant ‘children of the western wind’. Our tribe was named for the high, clear and bright winds that played across the flat areas where we had made our home, and it had been one of the first things that I had said to Ymmen when I had first introduced myself to him.
And then, maybe it was my imagination, but as I lifted my head to look south and east, but I thought that I could taste that familiar current of air just as I remembered it from my childhood before the Mines of Masaka.
It is different, I thought as I opened my mouth to laugh into the winds of my youth. I could feel a shadow of Ymmen’s awareness of the Western Winds, and could read the subtle hint of Plain-sweet grasses that added a bright, lemony note to the air, as well as the hint of something richer and spicier, being carried from afar. Is this how a dragon sees the world? I thought, closing my eyes for a moment before my peace was abruptly ruined.
On that wind was also the scent of smoke, just like the thick and greasy, acrid black smoke that we had followed this far across the Plains.
Inyene had attacked Souda lands! I thought, instantly gritting my teeth and straining my eyes to see ahead. Which villages had been attacked? How many had managed to escape? The worry tore at my insides, almost too much to bear as Ymmen flew, to finally see several pillars of smoke, and they came from villages that I knew.
“Abar-by-the-water, Temer.” I called the villages’ names as Ymmen flew lower and lower to circle the burning settlements. There was nothing left but blackened ruins, still smoking but whose hungry flames were now long since dampened.
“I can’t see anyone,” I whispered in horror. Both villages appeared abandoned. “Where are they?” I had terrible images of lines of my people being dragged away by Inyene’s guards, thrown in shackles just like I had been and marched across the hot lands to be forced down into the freezing caves and caverns of the Masaka.
“No one lives here,” Ymmen agreed with me, and I knew that I could trust his finer senses. And yet I couldn’t see bodies, I thought. Either the survivors had already buried or carried off the dead – or perhaps Inyene had spared the people here? What for? To be slaves?
“It’s getting dark,” Ymmen advised me, and I realized that he was right when I saw how the light of the far western sky was starting to deepen and purple.
“Stars!” I hadn’t realized that we had flown this far – even that Ymmen could fly this far and this fast, all in one day. “We had better get back to the others,” I thought, although I didn’t want to leave the Souda lands and the Western Winds.
“I think that the abominations are long gone. I cannot sense their filth for days in all directions,” Ymmen reassured me. At least I could return to Abioye, Naroba, Tamin, and Montfre knowing that our people would be safe for a little while, at the very least.